What about Trout ?

Salmon fever is alive and well here at Mile 14. But while people are racing to their silver hole at 4:00 am every morning there are hundreds of, no thousands of beautiful RainBow Trout like this going unfished. Whats with that? So you know me, I gotta be different. My friend Howard Brown is in town and yesterday I got to fish with his wife Linda and daughter Liz along with our friend Lori Blinn until noon. We caught a gaggle of salmon and then decided to celebrate our friendship with a little trout fishing. I'm off the clock and I'm excited to go fishing, its to be the first time I've handled a rod all summer.

That guy there is Howard, unlike me he's soft spoken, unlike me he's a doctor, but like me he loves to fish and has wonderful appreciation of the outdoors. I first spotted him on the dock yesterday morning and he wasn't looking for a guideboat or chatting fish speak. He was just looking out over the river, observing, looking at a bird, maybe a splash, maybe nothing at all...thats Howard. I don't really know how to describe how people get great fondness for each other and I guess maybe if you can't describe it then thats how you know. So anyway, me, Jet-Dog, Howard and Gary Blinn race 10 miles upriver and its trout heaven. We hook one on the first drift. We hook one on the second drift. This time of year the RainBows love the meat off of salmon carcasses so we're using flesh flies and real meat, shrimp or chicken skin. An hour in Gary caught this next trout. As you can see its gorgeous and doesn't have a scale out of place...unlike those trout in the Cooper Landing area that have been caught and released so many times they smile for the camera.

I had caught a couple small ones and was just in a great mood, happy to be holding a rod and having the guys bait their own hooks. I started a drift real close to shore near Slikok Creek and as soon as my bait sunk bang....heavy fish on. The hook set drives him 2 feet out of the water and we're all stunned to see a trout between 12 and 15 pounds. He splashes back into the water and walla...fish gone. I reel in. No leader. Yikes, it either broke at the knot or in my excitement I had missed a loop on the knot and it had become untied......mmmmm....I could have had 'the picture' but instead I get a good ribbing from Howard. Damn professional I'd say. Well, it ain't the first or the last nice fish I lose, I hope.

This next pic I had to print. I know, its just a sunrise. But if you'd seen as few of them as I have this summer you'd be excited to. This week was average here at mile 14, we started out fishing in the rain 4 out of the 6 mornings, we ended our fishing in the rain 4 of 6 afternoons. Do you remember the scene in Ray Bradberrys Illustrated Man where the sound of the rain was driving the guys crazy who were marooned on a distant planet...well that ain't me yet but close.

So the other day I was anchored in the Big Eddy when this guideboat came by. I'm a bit embarrassed to say that I don't know this guy but he's got to be A.O.K. He's trolling Kwikfish with those kids and theres so many pink salmon that they have two on at a time. He 's not flustered at all, they're all laughing and giggling and the fish are tangling and he's running the boat and well....he's just doing a great job of guiding. Pretty cool.

Thanks for reading Mile 14. I'm getting tantalizingly close to that 10,000 read milestone. If you have some ideas or questions about anything just holler, I'd love to write it all.